White Sox (50-43): 2
Tigers (50-44): 4

It's ok, Gordon wasn't using that bat anyway. (Rick Osentoski-US PRESSWIRE)

The Sox first tallies were not of the stressful variety as far as Verlander was concerned. Alexei Ramirez lead off the inning with a single and a mistake pitch to Alejandro De Aza left the ball yard. Peavy’s runs allowed were a bit more taxing as he threw over 30 pitches in the inning. A couple of base hits allowed had a chance to be pitched over without any real damage when he came in too tight on Quintin Berry, putting him on first with the HBP to face Miguel Cabrera. What followed was a single for Cabrera, a single for Fielder and a double for Delmon Young. A 2-0 lead turned to a 3-2 deficit just like that.

Peavy, save for one more hiccup of a inning, yielding another run. Verlander, unfortunately was Verlander the rest of the way. He went 8 innings without allowing another run and the Central lead is officially in shaky territory at .5 games.

Plus: Alejandro De Aza was the lone bright spot in the lineup. Alex Rios and Alexei Ramirez managed a hit each, but De Aza tallied the Sox only runs with 6th homerun of the year, the first of 2 hits for the centerfielder.

Minus: Everybody else. Runs are at a serious premium right now and one more day of it means a break from first place. It’s perfectly natural for hitters to struggle against Verlander, but White Sox hitters haven’t been managing many runs against any pitchers of late.

Player of the Game
Alejandro De Aza – .246 Win Expectancy added

Source: FanGraphs

It may not be big, but we’ve got some questions for John Verburg of Motor City Bengals, Fansided’s Tigers site. We’d like to know what’s up with that .500 record and touch on some players surely nobody ever talks about in Detroit without being prodded, Miguel Cabrera and Justin Verlander.

MA: When the season started, most people were pretty sure that the Tigers would run away with the AL Central. I would think most folks still believe the Tigers will take the division, but no longer in such a landslide. Where do you think the Tigers fit into the division, and to what do you attribute the slow start?

JV: Well, the slow start is easy to attribute to the offense that hasn’t produced as expected. And there is some obvious truth to that. But as Jim Leyland likes to say, check the back of their bubblegum card and you will see what they will do. Guys like Prince and Miguel Cabrera will put up the numbers, and the offense will get going. My concern is their bullpen. Valverde doesn’t look right, and Benoit is walking way too many guys. The Tigers were 77-0 last year when going into the 8th with a lead. I think they’ve lost 6 games or something like that already this season. I didn’t expect perfection, but it’s been a roller coaster ride almost every night. Still, I think the Tigers by August will be leading the division, and eventually separate themselves.

MA: Miguel Cabrera has been good so far in 2012, but not Miguel Cabrera good. Do you expect that he’ll come back up and come near duplicating his season stats in 2011? Do you think the step down is just due to the fact that it’s mid-May or do you think perhaps it’s related to the adjustment he’s had to make on the defensive end?

JV: I don’t think it has anything to do with his defense honestly. I think that it’s a vastly overrated school of thought that some guys lose something at the dish because they are focusing so hard on defense. Cabrera didn’t forget how to hit, he hasn’t been as lucky in the past, and there might be a slight mechanical adjustment he needs to make. I think he will make it very soon, and we will see the same offensive monster we always have.

MA: Justin Verlander is leaned on pretty heavily for innings, probably rightly so, it’s hard to argue with success. But do you think that after averaging nearly 240 innings over the last 3 years that he could start to wear down a bit if that trend continues through the season?

JV: At this point no. He seems to be a freak of nature. I thought that we would see some decline the past couple of years because of all the pitches he has thrown, but it just hasn’t happened. He could just be one of those guys blessed with an arm that will seemingly go on forever. His mechanics help too, as they aren’t generally seen as high effort as a lot of guys with his kind of velocity. I mean the guy has hit 100 in the 8th and 9th inning of games this season. He doesn’t seem affected.

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Matt: There has been a lot of waiting for Royals fans and coming into the season it seemed like this could be a year that the youngsters would put together a team that might compete but the team got off to a pretty dismal start. With the talent level that’s on the field now, how thin is the patience level overall to see some W’s? Are you still trusting Dayton Moore’s process?

Engel: It’s definitely been a disappointing season so far. The Royals looked fine on a 3-3 road trip to open up, but lost 10 in a row to open up the home schedule. The talent is there, but it’s young, inexperienced talent. The Royals have also spent most of the year without key players who they’d expected to supplement Eric Hosmer, Billy Butler and Mike Moustakas. Johnny Giavotella was supposed to be the opening day second baseman but was optioned to Omaha. Salvador Perez is the catcher of the future, but is out until July while recovering from meniscus surgery. Joakim Soria tore his UCL and is done after Tommy John surgery, and then Lorenzo Cain tore a hip flexor in the fifth game of the year.

Expectations were also a lot higher after seeing strong play last summer, so the 12 game losing streak in the middle of the first month of the year really unearthed a lot of groaning. It’s been rough.

Overall though, I still like how Dayton Moore has built up a pool of talent. There are questions about his ability to build a big league roster, though. It’s been a weird year.

Matt: I imagine one of the most refreshing things to see in recent years was Alex Gordon finally getting on track. Do you expect him to finish 2012 with similar numbers to last season? Beyond this year?

Engel: Going into this year, I felt like Gordon could meet or exceed his power and RBI numbers from last year, but his BABIP was very high. Part of that is a willing approach to go the other way with pitches rather than trying to pull them and more line drives fell in for hits. Still, it isn’t something that looked sustainable. I figured on .270 with 25 homers and 90 RBI. As long as he stays healthy I think that’s a good target any year going forward.

Matt: Even with the slow start, the AL Central is pretty wide open to any team willing to go on a serious win streak or two. Do the Royals have it in them to make a run at it, even with the lack of pitching?

Engel: That’s the thing, it’s going to depend on the pitching. If Bruce Chen can be solid, if Danny Duffy can turn the light on, if Mike Montgomery comes up and starts strong (whenever he happens to debut) and if Luke Hochevar and Jonathan Sanchez can do anything resembling average starting pitching, there might be a chance. Felipe Paulino may end up being the top starter all year. It’s slim, but there’s a chance.

The defense is much improved over previous years. The bullpen is a strength and with the hitting is probably going to be there any night of the week. They’ll have to have a few streaks and a meltdown by Justin Verlander may be the necessary key.

Matt: Not so much a game question, but I was a fan of Frank White in the booth. What are your feelings about the way both parties behaved in the separation, and is listening to Rex Hudler every day as bad as I imagine it is?

Engel: That whole situation is a mess. Frank White is a legend in Kansas City. The Royals have retired two players’ numbers in their history and White is one of them. He literally helped build Kauffman Stadium in the early 70s, lived in Kansas City and was the most accomplished graduate of the Royals Baseball Academy.

He wasn’t the best broadcaster ever, but he wasn’t the worst. He was passable and fit the pace of Kansas City fans. There were a lot of building tensions between he and the club and when they found some kind of excuse to keep him off the broadcast, they took it. Neither side looked good in the spat and it’s going to take a few years to mend the relationship.

But yeah…Hudler is pretty tough to listen to. He discusses things like none of us have ever watched baseball before. Kansas City, with Denny Mathews, Ryan Lefebvre, the late Paul Splittorff and White as current and previous broadcasters have always been tempered, a bit wry and under control. Hudler is about as far from that measured approach as you can get. It makes me glad for a volume control.

For the other end of the conversation, click through to Kings of Kauffman

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